Just my little adventure to where life leads me...or where I might venture on my own. Life is all about doors we open...

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Huevos Motulenos in the making...

Remember I got that cool new Mexican cookbook? Well, I put it to use this weekend. It did this all day and all night on Saturday:

So it was a good day to experiment with cooking. I decided to try my hand at Huevos Motulenos, something I always get several times for breakfast when I'm on Isla because you can't get it in the United States...well, at least nowhere I've found. Maybe Rick Bayless has it at his restaurant, but I think it would be cheaper to go to Isla than to get it in Chicago.

According to the recipe in the book, Huevos Motulenos also involves two other recipes before you can put together the breakfast. Here's the first part...Frijoles del la Olla (Pot Beans).

I got the ingredients at the little Mexican market that I posted about last weekend. You have to soak the beans for at least three hours, then cook them for about two hours.

It includes lard, which is a Mexican staple. This is the first time in my entire life that I have bought lard. I could just feel my arteries start to harden as I opened the box. But I wanted to follow the recipe to get the most authentic result, so I figured once wasn't going to kill me...maybe.

There's the three tablespoons of it melting in the beans...becoming the invisible killer. Haha!

So that's all I could do on Saturday because it pretty much consumed the whole afternoon. That's okay because I did some experimenting with rain photos and Photoshop.

INTERMISSION

Here's what it looked like from my balcony. This is by no means a great photograph, but it was the only one where you could tell a little bit that it was actually raining.

So I tried some of Photoshop's techniques on it just for fun.

This is the "plastic wrap" effect...

This is the "pinch" effect, where it looks like you pinched the middle from behind and pulled it.

This is called "polar coordinates"...

And this is "wave"...

It's pretty amazing what Photoshop can do, and I only know a fraction of it.

I kind of liked the photo of the lily on my balcony...

But it looks kind of weird "plastic wrapped"...

Okay, back to the Huevos Motulenos. Here's what the beans looked like when they were finished cooking. And they were great just like that...would have made a great side dish.

Now for the next recipe...turning the beans into Frijoles Refritos (Refried Beans). If you can't see it, the recipe says they're not really fried twice, they're simply "fried well" so all the liquid is gone.

They had to cook for quite awhile to get all the liquid out.

Now we're finally to the actual recipe. You have to saute garlic, onions, thyme, cumin, cloves and tomatoes together.

I'm including all these boring pictures to show how much work this dish is. There's a lot going on here. Frying the corn tortillas in oil. (The recipe called for two torillas per dish, but I only used one.)

And the huevos...

I decided to throw a couple slices of plaintain on because they always include those when you have this on Isla...

Then you have to warm up some peas and ham to go on top, not to mention the queso fresco.

So here's the final product after a lot of work...

Here's what it looks like at Tacostumbros at the Loncheria...

Not too shabby, huh? And it actually tasted pretty darn good...and very similar...which was fortunate considering all the work it took. But, you know, it just wasn't the same as sitting at the Loncheria with the colorful tablecloths while you're sweating buckets. And I also forgot to get a Mexican Coke which is always a part of my Mexican breakfasts on Isla because it's so darn hot!

Would I make it again? Probably not. I would much rather have the wonderful ladies on Isla make it for me while I sit back and appreciate their hard work on a new level. Besides that, I don't have to deal with the aftermath...

Well, it's not raining today, so I better go hit the walking trail since I missed it yesterday.

6 comments:

Deb, what a fantastic post! First of all, the dish sounds and looks fantastic (but no way I'm doing all that at home)! And secondly, all your photos are wonderful! You are such a talented photographer!